The number of properties worth more than one million pounds (1.84 million US dollars) each has soared 20 times in the past 10 years in Britain, Sky news reported on Thursday.

Some 66,600 homes in Britain are now worth at least seven figures each, compared with 3,400 homes in 1995, the report quoted estimates from Halifax, a British bank, as saying.

Most of the homes worth one million pounds and more are in the Greater London area, which has an estimated 37,200 properties valued at this figure, about 56 percent of the national total.

More than 2,250 properties were sold for this sum in London in 2005, while 788 were sold for the figure outside of London and in the southeast. The number of high-end properties sold in UK areas other than England were few.

Source: Xinhua